The Ascent of Mount Carmel is a work by Saint John of the Cross, a mystical treatise on the soul's journey toward union with God, using the metaphor of a spiritual mountain climb in which the soul must cast off ‘darkness’ and 'poverty' (emptiness of self) to reach the summit of perfection with Christ, often referred to as ‘two darknesses’ (purity of the senses & spirit) as the path to the ‘light’ of God. Mount Carmel symbolizes an ascetic and spiritual life, while the summit of the mountain is God. Through suffering and radical self-denial, the soul becomes spiritually ‘poor’, allowing God to fill that emptiness with His love, bringing the soul to the ‘light’ of full union, which essentially describes the difficult spiritual path to achieving mystical union with God.